Ensuring the Requirements of Ergonomics in the Automated the Layout of Equipment

Abstract

The article discusses the solution to the problem of automating the design of layouts of various equipment, taking into account ergonomics, by which is meant the provision of service areas. The article describes the development of methods and algorithms that provide access to installation tools and workspace during installation and maintenance of already placed equipment. The solution method is geometric modeling of both the placed objects and the installation equipment necessary for its maintenance, as well as the trajectory of its movement to the service area. Thus, both the installation equipment and the movement paths are treated as composable objects, the intersection of which with other objects is unacceptable. As a modeling method, receptor-based geometric models that discretize the allocation space were used. The choice of receptor models is due to the fact that the solid-state model of all the instantaneous positions of the installation tool in the process of its delivery and operation is extremely complex from a geometrical point of view. The possibility of relatively easy to determine the fact of the intersection of all objects of the scene, described by receptor models, and is the rationale for the choice in our study of the receptor method of geometric modeling. Based on the receptor design model, a procedure has been developed for determining the trajectory of a mounting tool at a given operating point, as well as the formation of the space required for operation, or establishing the fact that it is impossible to service a particular object, which indicates an unsatisfactory (non-ergonomic) given design solution. In this study a feature of using receptor models is the use of 6-digit codes in the receptor matrices, which, with some complication of the modeling method, allows to obtain additional information about problem areas in the layout under study (impossibility of carrying a tool, impossibility of performing assembly operations, etc.). Algorithms for solving this problem, as well as a graphical shell that visualizes the results of computer-aided design, are implemented as C# programs.